TIMBER
by femmefan1946
Summary: C.E. 2517 - After Inara, the Tams and Book join the crew, Serenity returns to Mycroft Moon, looking for cargo. Seven minutes and sixteen seconds of their last visit have made things easier and more difficult.
1. Chapter 1

TIMBER

C.E.2517

Before BDM- Simon and Kaylee are courting.

Why does Mycroft sound familiar?' asked Zoe. 'I don't recall ever putting down there.'

'I do, said Kaylee, 'We did a parts stop there oncet. They got a really good scrapyard for a nothin place. You remember, capt'n, jus you and me took the shuttle down? Before Inara joined us.'

Mal remembered and scowled to hide his embarrassment. 'That was the place with the two feudin clans, wasn't it?'

"Right, ' said Wash. 'they had an actual lumber yard and were harvesting timber.

'For Blue Sun, yeah.' Mal said, ' Remember you had comment bout the price of wood. Seemed like a one industry world.'

'Neither of you paid much attention to it? Where do they sell all that wood? It's bulky but prices are high for a luxury item like that.'

'Blue Sun is well in on that world though, dear. Mal said they had two Blue Sun Banks and the lumber yard had a Blue Sun logo on the sign. '

'Yeah. Every piece of cut wood will have the Blue Sun logo branded on it.'

'In the yard, of course. But when does it get branded? '

' Dunno, not in the forest. The logs would have to be processed. And they'd all be different sizes.'

'Short term thinking, surely,' said Simon, 'You can harvest softwood after 25 years of growth, but then you have to wait another 25 years for the next crop. Meanwhile every other world with the right climate and soil is growing trees too. Timber won't be a rare commodity for very long.'

But you don't plant all at oncet, Simon,' Kaylee said. 'My daddy planted a tree for every one of us kids and he was sellin them when one of us got married an used the money for the weddin trousseau.'

Inara looked surprised. 'Trousseau?'

'Don't know what else to call it. Settin up the new household. The year my brother got married prices was good enough the they had a down payment on a real nice apartment near the river. Mostly it was big household stuff like beds n chesterfields. A real nice dining table.' Kaylee patted the laminated bamboo of Serenity's table. 'He planted more'n one each though. He had a nice little pension growin out back come the day.'

"Why _had_, mei mei?' asked Mal 'Yer daddy ain't retired is he? You been talkin to him?'

'The woodlot is near the creek and pond, uphill a fair bit from the house and shop. Some hundans snuck in and clear cut near on half fore any of the fam'ly was up there. So he's startin again.'

'So no trousseau for you, lil Kaylee?' said Jayne. 'Who'll want you now? Reckon you'll have to stay on with us.'

Kaylee flushed with anger. 'Taint funny, Jayne! My daddy was countin on that timber to live on in his old age!'

'What trees did he grow, Kaylee?' asked Simon.

'Lotta pine and spruce. They grow straight and are easy to turn into lumber. Some poplar and aspen that grow real fast. And he put in maple and oak too. They grow real slow. He sez those are for the grandkids.'

'From the one come many,' said River.

The usual blank looks greeted her words. River sighed. 'If you don't cut out the root, it will rise again.'

Simon asked, 'Where would the thieves sell their loot? A tree is a pretty big thing to hide.'

'Sheriff figured they had a ship and took the logs to another world to sell. They left the branches, but they was only worthwhile for firewood and treenware.'

'So there's a black market for timber?'

'There's a market for everthing if you can find the buyer.'said Mal.

'Generous present,' remarked Zoe. 'Even new cut a twenty year old log would be worth… I dunno how much.'

'Check the Cortex. There will be prices and maybe the names of buyers.'

'The Blue Sun price is the lowest, but they say they will take any quantity and grade. The higher prices are smaller concerns, and remember some of them may be Blue Sun too. And the high prices are for special grades or isolated worlds.'

'If Blue Sun owns the lumber yard, there's a good chance they also own the tree farms.'

'Not a problem. The company is so big, they can't know what is goin' on most of the time. '

'So we have to avoid the lumber yard. We have to find a crew who will hive off part of their cut to us for a price better than their wages and worth the possibility of losing their jobs,before the log gets to the yard and branded.'

'And we gotta find enough money to pay'em when they deliver. And a flat place for pickup . And a buyer at the end of it all.'

'We don't have a customer. And we don't have cashy money to pay for the lumber. So good idea when we have a little for investment. And we should keep our ears open for someone who wants to enter the luxury market with a cheap source of wood.'

Mal said ,'I'll make some enquiries. It would have to have some pretty rich folks who can afford to build with timber, but who ain't too fussed about why it's on offer.'

It was Wash who found a potential buyer. 'I thought of my brother -in- law. The one who sold you Serenity. '

'Al?' I didn't know Zoe was in touch with him.'

'Not her favourite brother, but he's dirtside, so he's not hard to find. I called him and he asked around with some contractors he knows. Real cowboy builders, I suspect, but not overly concerned about provenance.'

'The guy who sold you Serenity is Wash' brother-in-law?' asked Kaylee.' Ain't that a coinkydinky.'

'My brother, Alcibides. ' said Zoe.'I wouldn't trust him with a cup of cold coffee.'

'But he sold the capt'n Serenity.' said Kaylee. 'that's pretty shiny.'

'He sold the captain a fifty year old death trap that didn't run and had been home to ... something... for years. Only reason it didn't blow up on its maiden voyage was that it wouldn't fly. '

'Hey!' remarked Mal.

'The point is,' said Wash, 'We have a potential customer. Now how do we get product?'

Mal's memory of the moon was coloured by embarrassment. He and Kaylee had been joyously naked and making the most of being away from the rest of the crew. Unfortunately, the boy with their grocery order had arrived unexpectedly early and as Kaylee put it, learned some good lessons for his future wife.

Kaylee sighed. Her memories were sadder now that her relationship with her captain had returned to platonic. He still kissed her occasionally, but in the most brotherly, even fatherly, manner.

'Well, I didn't pay much attention to the lumberyard. They had a real shiny junkyard. Great stuff considerin the location.'

'Maybehap, they were gettin the parts from salvagors? That moon's not too far from Sturges.'

'If that's the way of it, the scrapyard manager, was his name Andy? Might know of someone who would not be averse to a little moonlight harvesting.'

'But not from a tree farmer.'

'The lumberyard belonged to Blue Sun, or at least a subsidiary. Who owns the forests?'

Simon was searching the cortex. He found the little world easily enough and started searching land ownership. He learned large tracts of land belonged to a company called Fánróng de kě chíxù línyè chǎnpǐn -Prosperity Sustainable Forest Products.

'Hard to say who they are,' he reported, 'The ownership is off-world, but it seems to belong to a bigger company that belongs to an even bigger company that belongs to a huge company that belongs to a very tiny company.'

'Blue Sun, ' said Inara. 'They set up a lot of their subsidiaries that way. Confuses the tax man, but more important, it makes it difficult for the public to understand just how large Blue Sun really is.'

'How large is that, Inara/" asked Simon.

'I couldn't say, of course, that's the purpose of the complicated organization chart. But I would not be surprised if Blue Sun were larger than the Federal government. Certainly they have more employees. More divisions. Their company security force is larger than the Alliance's standing armed forces.'

No one doubted her words.

Inara was working on the Border and the Rim, taking a very unusual respite from her career at the Core where she was greatly sought after by some of the most rich and powerful. While she was professionally discreet about her clients, from time to time, she would mention having met someone who the crew, even Simon, from a wealthy and influential Core family, knew only from vids and newscasts.

When Inara made one of her few political statements, she was worth listening to.

'Which means, come down to it, if we find our moonlight harvester, we ain't hurtin a hardscrabble homesteader.'

'Why don't I wave Andy. I'm pert sure he was Andy, and ask if he knows anyone with timber available? He was real nice to me. I don't think he charged me to the variant resonance analyzer he found me.'

Simon smiled, ' You're not sure of the man's name or of the price, but you remember the part exactly?'

'Yep!'

'We can get his call from the cortex. Kaylee, give him a wave with luck he'll remember you fondly.'

He did. When Kaylee's smile appeared on his corepad screen, he looked shocked, especially that she remembered his name.

Kaylee listed a few parts she was needing and did a little dickering.

Say Andy, do you know anything about wood? We got a buyer for timber askin, but don't wanna pay Blue Sun prices.'

'Right world for lumber. Our quality is bar none. But everything here. the forest, the workers, the yard, belongs to Blue Sun.'

Nobody able to give a friendly discount for cashy money?'

'Risky , y'know? The lumberjacks work for wages, not very entrepreneurial, dong ma?"

'Would you ask around quiet like? She's not fussed about type, even go for a mix, and like I said , cashy money.' Kaylee smiled again and Andy melted.'Sure, bao bei, I'll ask: no promises but I'll put the word out.

'So, are you still with that big boyfriend?'

'Boyfriend? I was with my captain when I was there.'

'Oh, It... I may have misunderstood.'

'Not to fret. We're a close crew. See you in two days?'

'Close, er , yes. Two days? Shiny."

Serenity couldn't land at the tiny lot where the shuttle had put down two years before. But Wash found an open space about ten minutes walk from the scrapyard.

Kaylee and Wash took the mule to visit Andy and look over the stock. Mal and Zoe went grocery shopping, while Book headed off for the nearest church, Inara and Simon agreed to stay near the ship until Mal was satisfied it would be safe for the Tams to be seen. Even a tiny world like this could be a danger if the wrong people recognized them. Jayne headed for the nearest bar.

Mal was surprised to be recognized at Friendly Fred's Emporium.

'Got a new girl, eh? M'lad?' said Fred, poking Mal in the side.

Mal glared.

'My first mate. Been together for years.'

"heh so that lil gal you was with last time was just a bit on the side,eh? Lucky man, your wife's a looker!'

'Wife? She's first mate on our ship. Her husband is our pilot.' Mal was getting annoyed.

'No harm meant, no harm! Just tht your last visit here was pretty memorable.'

Mal shrugged.

"We're lookin for some fresh produce if you got any. The snow ain't promisin though.'

'It's early spring here, so we still got lots of roots and tubers. Do you a good price on potatoes, carrots, winter melon, onions. Go yellow and red beetroot. Some girasole left and lotsa squash.'

Zoe consulted her corpad where she kept her quartermaster notes.

"D'you grow rice or quinoa here?'

'No. Too cold. Some wheat and good buckwheat. We got a little noodle factory turns out nice pasta. Bout a hunnerd klicks west.'

A young woman entered the shop. When she saw Mal, she stopped and stared. Puzzled and worried, Mal nodded and greeted her. "Miss.' She squeaked and ran out.

Mal and Zoe exchanged a 'what the hell?' look.

The girl, just a schoolgirl really, reentered with two friends. They all stared at Mal, heads together and giggling. When they pulled out comms and started captures, Mal fled to the back of the shop. He didn't need his face waved all over the Cortex, even though he didn't think there were any active warrants for him. The Tams safety was paramount. They had been seen together on Jiangyin, and while the hill people were unlikely to cooperate with Alliance police, they had all been seen on Ariel and Jayne was definitely connected with the Tams from that caper.

The girls, still giggling, ran out of the shop.

Andy was also acting strangely. Kaylee remembered him as being very friendly, but he was a bit handsy today. Enough so that she was glad to have Wash along, check for some upgrades to the bridge controls.

'So you got a new boyfriend, bao bei?' asked Andy.

'Wash? No he'sour pilot, married to the first mate.'

And you're not with that big guy any more?'

'The captain? I'm still the mechanic on the same boat.'

'But you ain't...'

'He's not my sweetie, if that's what you mean.' said Kaylee, exasperated.

'Only you was pretty hot 'n' heavy...'

'Excuse me Andy,' said Wash, overhearing, 'Kaylee is a free woman and is here as a customer. I think you'd do better if you keep it professional.'

'Yeah.' Abashed, Andy actually blushed. 'It's just that vid is pretty popular around here.

Kaylee stared at him.

'The vid that Fred's delivery boy...'

Yīgè shénme yàng de yǐngpiàn? Sòng wàimài? Shèng gāowán zhōu'èr.

'Vid? asked Wash.

'Me and Mal was ,.. we was together then and the delivery came a little sooner than... The kid was only there for a minute!'

'Seven minutes and sixteen seconds, ' said Andy helpfully.

'We tipped the little bugger! An helped him move in the boxes!'

Wash looked at Kaylee, appalled and amused.

'The kid show it to his cricket team and it was prolly seen by every teenage boy on this moon before you broke atmo.'

'Oh! Mal's gonna be so mad!'

'Yeah, I mean, only seven minutes...'

'Well, ' said Andy,' the kid arrived late in the performance, if you understand me?'

'Oooh!' moaned Kaylee.

Zoe and Mal finished grocery shopping and arranged for delivery .

'Still got your nephew working for you?' asked Mal.

Fred looked shifty. 'Pierre-Ivan? He's graduated. Working up in the forest camp, planting crew. His sister took over the route.' He stopped. 'The kid didn't mean anything by it, y'know. And I doubt it's made it off...'

'What has?' asked Mal.

'Oh. Nothing. Nothing serious. Kid got a free show on that delivery and it was big news at the high school for a whiles.'

Zoe gave Mal a questioning look.

'The kid was earlier than we expected.' Mal flushed.' We was... enjoying the privacy.'

Zoe laughed. 'No harm."

'That's what Kaylee said.' Mal turned back to Fred. 'The kid's with the timber company now? Cause we're in the market for some dressed timber.'

'There's a lumberyard just up the road.'

'Not lookin to pay those kinda prices though. Think yer nephew might be able to help us find a better price?'

'He's pretty low on the food chain, but he's a nat'rel wheeler dealer. If he knows a guy, well, he owes you one.''

The four met up at a tea garden on the McDonald side of town.

'Looks like our best bet is Fred's nephew, Pierre-Ivan. And Fred seems to think he owes us.'

Kaylee looked nervous. 'Yer not too mad are you, capt'n?'

'Already knew he'd gotten an eyeful, mei mei. That may be our in.'

Wash and Kaylee exchanged glances. Evidently Mal didn't know the whole story.

All seven minutes and sixteen seconds of it.

The waitress brought over a pot of tea and Wash noticed her doubletake. How far had the vid been circulated?

Over dumplings and tea, they decided on the best route to the campsite for the treeplanters. Mal waved back to the ship to let Simon know that they would not be back for a few hours and that he should fill in the passengers about the updated plans.

The camp was only about an hour out of town. They passed a band of trees, mostly deciduous, about two kilometers deep, then another band of conifers that were posted as having been planted some twenty years before. The next band had been planted the year after that, and so on for twenty bands,with the trees getting shorter as they got younger.

They reached the final band which had been clearcut and slashburned over. Huge machines were plowing up the earth while a klick up the road, the planting crews were stooped over their labour. Another klick and they saw even bigger machines cutting tall straight conifers, stripping them of branches, and loading them onto trucks. The branches were being chipped on the spot and loaded onto other trucks.

"Those go to a plant that turns them into pellets and logs for fuel, or into paper, or cellulose fibre for spinnin into fibre.' explained Wash. "What? My brother-in-law was in the hygenic paper business."

'Question is how to find the nephew.'

'He should be back a bit with the plantin crew.'

They retreated to the clearcut area. Descending, Mal strode over to the nearest crew. 'Lookin for a lad name of Pierre-Ivan. Redheaded kid, nephew of Friendly Fred the grocer.

A young woman looked up and blinked in surprise. "Well, hello there.' she purred. Mal blinked back, disconcerted.

"Hello? D'ya know the lad?'

'Every one knows Pie. He's the go-to.'

'Go-to?'

"The guy who gets it for you. Whatever you need. What do you need, handsome?' The girl's colleagues hooted and clapped. She gave Mal a saucy grin. Even sweaty and grimy, she was obviously confident of her attraction.

'So where can I find him?' Mal grinned back. She was a pretty girl, and as he was all too aware, ending things with Kaylee had been harder than he thought.

'Not with us planters, for sure,' a boy answered,' He's up to the camp, there's a clearing in the 24 Band with a road to the highway. Trust Pie to find a soft docking.'

'He's found some hard things back in the day,' the girl planter said, making all the other women on the crew laugh.

'Hard things that found a soft docking,' a voice added. The crew were all laughing now.

Confusion made Mal irritable. "So further up the road, about two or three klicks and watch for a side road on the left or right?'

'Right,' the girl said. 'And if you come back this way, ask for Patsy and I'll do you right, if you'll do me right.'

'Er. Thank you, Patsy, ' Mal beat his retreat.

'Up the road and watch on the right after two kilometres,' Mal instructed Wash. 'Them planters are a strange bunch. All randy and laughing." Kaylee and Wash exchanged a 'Should we tell him?' glance.

'Physical work makes you feel your oats, in my experience , sir.' said Zoe.

At the camp, they were directed to Pie by a series of youngsters who all gave them surprised looks. For possibly the first time in her life, Kaylee felt embarrassed by the gaze of the camp crew. Their grins were... dirty. And Kaylee did not like the whispers that she almost heard following the mule through the camp.

Neither recognized Pie as the blushing boy they had met so long before, but he obviously knew them. Someone had waved him that they were on their way, and he was waiting with two large young men, plainly meant to be bodyguards. Each carried a pick, the tool of choice for planters, but clean and sharp.

Pie was the Big Man of the camp, apparently.

But he looked nervous as Mal approached, closely followed by Zoe, with Kaylee and Wash trailing behind, stretching from the long ride.

'It warn't no big thing, you know.' the boy said.

Mal stopped. He only knew the boy as a voyeur and was puzzled by his evident worry. But if it worked in his favour.

'I heard about your gossipy ways. Not what I'm here about though. I hear you might be able to help me lay hands on some good timber at a better price than Blue Sun charges. I understand you might owe me and mine a favour or two.'

Zoe already had the minions agitated. Her height, increased by thick 4 cm heels on her kneehigh boots, her steady gaze and her beauty made her Amazonian presence intimidating.

Pie relaxed. 'Ah, business. I like to do business.'

'So you might be able to lay hands on some good product for cashy money?'

'Might do, might do.' he signalled across the clearing to a skinny girl tending a large stove under a marquee. She scuttled over with a tray of tea and biscuits. 'We're pretty rough and ready out here in the camp, but please have a seat and some refreshment.'

Mal was amused by the youngsters style. He grinned back at him and the lad looked a tad disconcerted.

'If I give you the dimensions of our cargo bay, do you think you could fill it?'

"Give me the numbers.'

They quickly decided how much space Serenity's really had available and settled in to setting price.

Kaylee was finding it hard to settle. She tugged on the sleeve of the tea girl and whispered a request for the facilities. The girl led her from the tent and pointed her downhill where several wooden outhouses perched, raised a few steps above the ground on joists that allowed them to be moved easily when the camp did.

Kaylee did not really need the toilets, but she was twitchy waiting for Mal to learn about their seven minutes of fame. And sixteen seconds. The precision was particularly nerve-wracking. It seemed that a lot of attention had been paid to the vid.

Her own memories of the episode were a bit vague, she'd spent a lot of time in bed with the captain since then, even if he had decided to step back to allow her to pursue the schwae young Doctor Tam. She remembered that it was the first time anyone had gone down on her and the first time after several years of sexing the boys back home, that she had ever come. Remembering that, she felt a tingle run through her belly and wondered if she should abandon her quiet pursuit of Simon. But the captain had moved on. His smouldering lust for the beautiful and charming Companion, formerly kept under control by Kaylee's enthusiastic rutting, was burning higher all the time. Inara was pretending, even to herself, that the relationship was business and that his insults did not hurt her.

Kaylee sighed. Love was a difficult thing. Sex was much simpler.

The pit toilets were cleaner and more salubrious than she had because they were moved fairly often. And there was real toilet paper, even a choice of cleaning wipes and a solar heater on the roof heated water in a tank for handwashing.

As she exited the toilet. She could see the planters returning from their shift and the mess tent swinging into action to feed the hungry workers.

The showers were located just uphill from the toilets and most of the crew were heading there before eating. Kaylee noticed that there were separate men's and women's showers and apparently separate bunkies too. She guessed the local culture did not hold with premarital sex.

Which would have made the vid all the more exciting. She wondered if all the youngsters had seen it, or if it was just legendary.

The planter, Patsy was among the returning crew. She spotted Kaylee and loped over to intercept her. "You're the girl in the vid, aincha?'

'Reckon. People keep sayin so anyways. I ain't seen it. An I never gave no permission neither.'

'Well, you two are downright famous. That schwae fella is bigger in person than I thought.'

"The capt'n's tall, I guess.'

'He's not just tall.


	2. Chapter 2

TIMBER

C.E.2517

Before BDM- Simon and Kaylee are courting.

Why does Mycroft sound familiar?' asked Zoe. 'I don't recall ever putting down there.'

'I do, said Kaylee, 'We did a parts stop there oncet. They got a really good scrapyard for a nothin place. You remember, capt'n, jus you and me took the shuttle down? Before Inara joined us.'

Mal remembered and scowled to hide his embarrassment. 'That was the place with the two feudin clans, wasn't it?'

"Right, ' said Wash. 'they had an actual lumber yard and were harvesting timber.

'For Blue Sun, yeah.' Mal said, ' Remember you had comment bout the price of wood. Seemed like a one industry world.'

'Neither of you paid much attention to it? Where do they sell all that wood? It's bulky but prices are high for a luxury item like that.'

'Blue Sun is well in on that world though, dear. Mal said they had two Blue Sun Banks and the lumber yard had a Blue Sun logo on the sign. '

'Yeah. Every piece of cut wood will have the Blue Sun logo branded on it.'

'In the yard, of course. But when does it get branded? '

' Dunno, not in the forest. The logs would have to be processed. And they'd all be different sizes.'

'Short term thinking, surely,' said Simon, 'You can harvest softwood after 25 years of growth, but then you have to wait another 25 years for the next crop. Meanwhile every other world with the right climate and soil is growing trees too. Timber won't be a rare commodity for very long.'

But you don't plant all at oncet, Simon,' Kaylee said. 'My daddy planted a tree for every one of us kids and he was sellin them when one of us got married an used the money for the weddin trousseau.'

Inara looked surprised. 'Trousseau?'

'Don't know what else to call it. Settin up the new household. The year my brother got married prices was good enough the they had a down payment on a real nice apartment near the river. Mostly it was big household stuff like beds n chesterfields. A real nice dining table.' Kaylee patted the laminated bamboo of Serenity's table. 'He planted more'n one each though. He had a nice little pension growin out back come the day.'

"Why _had_, mei mei?' asked Mal 'Yer daddy ain't retired is he? You been talkin to him?'

'The woodlot is near the creek and pond, uphill a fair bit from the house and shop. Some hundans snuck in and clear cut near on half fore any of the fam'ly was up there. So he's startin again.'

'So no trousseau for you, lil Kaylee?' said Jayne. 'Who'll want you now? Reckon you'll have to stay on with us.'

Kaylee flushed with anger. 'Taint funny, Jayne! My daddy was countin on that timber to live on in his old age!'

'What trees did he grow, Kaylee?' asked Simon.

'Lotta pine and spruce. They grow straight and are easy to turn into lumber. Some poplar and aspen that grow real fast. And he put in maple and oak too. They grow real slow. He sez those are for the grandkids.'

'From the one come many,' said River.

The usual blank looks greeted her words. River sighed. 'If you don't cut out the root, it will rise again.'

Simon asked, 'Where would the thieves sell their loot? A tree is a pretty big thing to hide.'

'Sheriff figured they had a ship and took the logs to another world to sell. They left the branches, but they was only worthwhile for firewood and treenware.'

'So there's a black market for timber?'

'There's a market for everthing if you can find the buyer.'said Mal.

'Generous present,' remarked Zoe. 'Even new cut a twenty year old log would be worth… I dunno how much.'

'Check the Cortex. There will be prices and maybe the names of buyers.'

'The Blue Sun price is the lowest, but they say they will take any quantity and grade. The higher prices are smaller concerns, and remember some of them may be Blue Sun too. And the high prices are for special grades or isolated worlds.'

'If Blue Sun owns the lumber yard, there's a good chance they also own the tree farms.'

'Not a problem. The company is so big, they can't know what is goin' on most of the time. '

'So we have to avoid the lumber yard. We have to find a crew who will hive off part of their cut to us for a price better than their wages and worth the possibility of losing their jobs,before the log gets to the yard and branded.'

'And we gotta find enough money to pay'em when they deliver. And a flat place for pickup . And a buyer at the end of it all.'

'We don't have a customer. And we don't have cashy money to pay for the lumber. So good idea when we have a little for investment. And we should keep our ears open for someone who wants to enter the luxury market with a cheap source of wood.'

Mal said ,'I'll make some enquiries. It would have to have some pretty rich folks who can afford to build with timber, but who ain't too fussed about why it's on offer.'

It was Wash who found a potential buyer. 'I thought of my brother -in- law. The one who sold you Serenity. '

'Al?' I didn't know Zoe was in touch with him.'

'Not her favourite brother, but he's dirtside, so he's not hard to find. I called him and he asked around with some contractors he knows. Real cowboy builders, I suspect, but not overly concerned about provenance.'

'The guy who sold you Serenity is Wash' brother-in-law?' asked Kaylee.' Ain't that a coinkydinky.'

'My brother, Alcibides. ' said Zoe.'I wouldn't trust him with a cup of cold coffee.'

'But he sold the capt'n Serenity.' said Kaylee. 'that's pretty shiny.'

'He sold the captain a fifty year old death trap that didn't run and had been home to ... something... for years. Only reason it didn't blow up on its maiden voyage was that it wouldn't fly. '

'Hey!' remarked Mal.

'The point is,' said Wash, 'We have a potential customer. Now how do we get product?'

Mal's memory of the moon was coloured by embarrassment. He and Kaylee had been joyously naked and making the most of being away from the rest of the crew. Unfortunately, the boy with their grocery order had arrived unexpectedly early and as Kaylee put it, learned some good lessons for his future wife.

Kaylee sighed. Her memories were sadder now that her relationship with her captain had returned to platonic. He still kissed her occasionally, but in the most brotherly, even fatherly, manner.

'Well, I didn't pay much attention to the lumberyard. They had a real shiny junkyard. Great stuff considerin the location.'

'Maybehap, they were gettin the parts from salvagors? That moon's not too far from Sturges.'

'If that's the way of it, the scrapyard manager, was his name Andy? Might know of someone who would not be averse to a little moonlight harvesting.'

'But not from a tree farmer.'

'The lumberyard belonged to Blue Sun, or at least a subsidiary. Who owns the forests?'

Simon was searching the cortex. He found the little world easily enough and started searching land ownership. He learned large tracts of land belonged to a company called Fánróng de kě chíxù línyè chǎnpǐn -Prosperity Sustainable Forest Products.

'Hard to say who they are,' he reported, 'The ownership is off-world, but it seems to belong to a bigger company that belongs to an even bigger company that belongs to a huge company that belongs to a very tiny company.'

'Blue Sun, ' said Inara. 'They set up a lot of their subsidiaries that way. Confuses the tax man, but more important, it makes it difficult for the public to understand just how large Blue Sun really is.'

'How large is that, Inara/" asked Simon.

'I couldn't say, of course, that's the purpose of the complicated organization chart. But I would not be surprised if Blue Sun were larger than the Federal government. Certainly they have more employees. More divisions. Their company security force is larger than the Alliance's standing armed forces.'

No one doubted her words.

Inara was working on the Border and the Rim, taking a very unusual respite from her career at the Core where she was greatly sought after by some of the most rich and powerful. While she was professionally discreet about her clients, from time to time, she would mention having met someone who the crew, even Simon, from a wealthy and influential Core family, knew only from vids and newscasts.

When Inara made one of her few political statements, she was worth listening to.

'Which means, come down to it, if we find our moonlight harvester, we ain't hurtin a hardscrabble homesteader.'

'Why don't I wave Andy. I'm pert sure he was Andy, and ask if he knows anyone with timber available? He was real nice to me. I don't think he charged me to the variant resonance analyzer he found me.'

Simon smiled, ' You're not sure of the man's name or of the price, but you remember the part exactly?'

'Yep!'

'We can get his call from the cortex. Kaylee, give him a wave with luck he'll remember you fondly.'

He did. When Kaylee's smile appeared on his corepad screen, he looked shocked, especially that she remembered his name.

Kaylee listed a few parts she was needing and did a little dickering.

Say Andy, do you know anything about wood? We got a buyer for timber askin, but don't wanna pay Blue Sun prices.'

'Right world for lumber. Our quality is bar none. But everything here. the forest, the workers, the yard, belongs to Blue Sun.'

Nobody able to give a friendly discount for cashy money?'

'Risky , y'know? The lumberjacks work for wages, not very entrepreneurial, dong ma?"

'Would you ask around quiet like? She's not fussed about type, even go for a mix, and like I said , cashy money.' Kaylee smiled again and Andy melted.'Sure, bao bei, I'll ask: no promises but I'll put the word out.

'So, are you still with that big boyfriend?'

'Boyfriend? I was with my captain when I was there.'

'Oh, It... I may have misunderstood.'

'Not to fret. We're a close crew. See you in two days?'

'Close, er , yes. Two days? Shiny."

Serenity couldn't land at the tiny lot where the shuttle had put down two years before. But Wash found an open space about ten minutes walk from the scrapyard.

Kaylee and Wash took the mule to visit Andy and look over the stock. Mal and Zoe went grocery shopping, while Book headed off for the nearest church, Inara and Simon agreed to stay near the ship until Mal was satisfied it would be safe for the Tams to be seen. Even a tiny world like this could be a danger if the wrong people recognized them. Jayne headed for the nearest bar.

Mal was surprised to be recognized at Friendly Fred's Emporium.

'Got a new girl, eh? M'lad?' said Fred, poking Mal in the side.

Mal glared.

'My first mate. Been together for years.'

"heh so that lil gal you was with last time was just a bit on the side,eh? Lucky man, your wife's a looker!'

'Wife? She's first mate on our ship. Her husband is our pilot.' Mal was getting annoyed.

'No harm meant, no harm! Just tht your last visit here was pretty memorable.'

Mal shrugged.

"We're lookin for some fresh produce if you got any. The snow ain't promisin though.'

'It's early spring here, so we still got lots of roots and tubers. Do you a good price on potatoes, carrots, winter melon, onions. Go yellow and red beetroot. Some girasole left and lotsa squash.'

Zoe consulted her corpad where she kept her quartermaster notes.

"D'you grow rice or quinoa here?'

'No. Too cold. Some wheat and good buckwheat. We got a little noodle factory turns out nice pasta. Bout a hunnerd klicks west.'

A young woman entered the shop. When she saw Mal, she stopped and stared. Puzzled and worried, Mal nodded and greeted her. "Miss.' She squeaked and ran out.

Mal and Zoe exchanged a 'what the hell?' look.

The girl, just a schoolgirl really, reentered with two friends. They all stared at Mal, heads together and giggling. When they pulled out comms and started captures, Mal fled to the back of the shop. He didn't need his face waved all over the Cortex, even though he didn't think there were any active warrants for him. The Tams safety was paramount. They had been seen together on Jiangyin, and while the hill people were unlikely to cooperate with Alliance police, they had all been seen on Ariel and Jayne was definitely connected with the Tams from that caper.

The girls, still giggling, ran out of the shop.

Andy was also acting strangely. Kaylee remembered him as being very friendly, but he was a bit handsy today. Enough so that she was glad to have Wash along, check for some upgrades to the bridge controls.

'So you got a new boyfriend, bao bei?' asked Andy.

'Wash? No he'sour pilot, married to the first mate.'

And you're not with that big guy any more?'

'The captain? I'm still the mechanic on the same boat.'

'But you ain't...'

'He's not my sweetie, if that's what you mean.' said Kaylee, exasperated.

'Only you was pretty hot 'n' heavy...'

'Excuse me Andy,' said Wash, overhearing, 'Kaylee is a free woman and is here as a customer. I think you'd do better if you keep it professional.'

'Yeah.' Abashed, Andy actually blushed. 'It's just that vid is pretty popular around here.

Kaylee stared at him.

'The vid that Fred's delivery boy...'

Yīgè shénme yàng de yǐngpiàn? Sòng wàimài? Shèng gāowán zhōu'èr.

'Vid? asked Wash.

'Me and Mal was ,.. we was together then and the delivery came a little sooner than... The kid was only there for a minute!'

'Seven minutes and sixteen seconds, ' said Andy helpfully.

'We tipped the little bugger! An helped him move in the boxes!'

Wash looked at Kaylee, appalled and amused.

'The kid show it to his cricket team and it was prolly seen by every teenage boy on this moon before you broke atmo.'

'Oh! Mal's gonna be so mad!'

'Yeah, I mean, only seven minutes...'

'Well, ' said Andy,' the kid arrived late in the performance, if you understand me?'

'Oooh!' moaned Kaylee.

Zoe and Mal finished grocery shopping and arranged for delivery .

'Still got your nephew working for you?' asked Mal.

Fred looked shifty. 'Pierre-Ivan? He's graduated. Working up in the forest camp, planting crew. His sister took over the route.' He stopped. 'The kid didn't mean anything by it, y'know. And I doubt it's made it off...'

'What has?' asked Mal.

'Oh. Nothing. Nothing serious. Kid got a free show on that delivery and it was big news at the high school for a whiles.'

Zoe gave Mal a questioning look.

'The kid was earlier than we expected.' Mal flushed.' We was... enjoying the privacy.'

Zoe laughed. 'No harm."

'That's what Kaylee said.' Mal turned back to Fred. 'The kid's with the timber company now? Cause we're in the market for some dressed timber.'

'There's a lumberyard just up the road.'

'Not lookin to pay those kinda prices though. Think yer nephew might be able to help us find a better price?'

'He's pretty low on the food chain, but he's a nat'rel wheeler dealer. If he knows a guy, well, he owes you one.''

The four met up at a tea garden on the McDonald side of town.

'Looks like our best bet is Fred's nephew, Pierre-Ivan. And Fred seems to think he owes us.'

Kaylee looked nervous. 'Yer not too mad are you, capt'n?'

'Already knew he'd gotten an eyeful, mei mei. That may be our in.'

Wash and Kaylee exchanged glances. Evidently Mal didn't know the whole story.

All seven minutes and sixteen seconds of it.

The waitress brought over a pot of tea and Wash noticed her doubletake. How far had the vid been circulated?

Over dumplings and tea, they decided on the best route to the campsite for the treeplanters. Mal waved back to the ship to let Simon know that they would not be back for a few hours and that he should fill in the passengers about the updated plans.

The camp was only about an hour out of town. They passed a band of trees, mostly deciduous, about two kilometers deep, then another band of conifers that were posted as having been planted some twenty years before. The next band had been planted the year after that, and so on for twenty bands,with the trees getting shorter as they got younger.

They reached the final band which had been clearcut and slashburned over. Huge machines were plowing up the earth while a klick up the road, the planting crews were stooped over their labour. Another klick and they saw even bigger machines cutting tall straight conifers, stripping them of branches, and loading them onto trucks. The branches were being chipped on the spot and loaded onto other trucks.

"Those go to a plant that turns them into pellets and logs for fuel, or into paper, or cellulose fibre for spinnin into fibre.' explained Wash. "What? My brother-in-law was in the hygenic paper business."

'Question is how to find the nephew.'

'He should be back a bit with the plantin crew.'

They retreated to the clearcut area. Descending, Mal strode over to the nearest crew. 'Lookin for a lad name of Pierre-Ivan. Redheaded kid, nephew of Friendly Fred the grocer.

A young woman looked up and blinked in surprise. "Well, hello there.' she purred. Mal blinked back, disconcerted.

"Hello? D'ya know the lad?'

'Every one knows Pie. He's the go-to.'

'Go-to?'

"The guy who gets it for you. Whatever you need. What do you need, handsome?' The girl's colleagues hooted and clapped. She gave Mal a saucy grin. Even sweaty and grimy, she was obviously confident of her attraction.

'So where can I find him?' Mal grinned back. She was a pretty girl, and as he was all too aware, ending things with Kaylee had been harder than he thought.

'Not with us planters, for sure,' a boy answered,' He's up to the camp, there's a clearing in the 24 Band with a road to the highway. Trust Pie to find a soft docking.'

'He's found some hard things back in the day,' the girl planter said, making all the other women on the crew laugh.

'Hard things that found a soft docking,' a voice added. The crew were all laughing now.

Confusion made Mal irritable. "So further up the road, about two or three klicks and watch for a side road on the left or right?'

'Right,' the girl said. 'And if you come back this way, ask for Patsy and I'll do you right, if you'll do me right.'

'Er. Thank you, Patsy, ' Mal beat his retreat.

'Up the road and watch on the right after two kilometres,' Mal instructed Wash. 'Them planters are a strange bunch. All randy and laughing." Kaylee and Wash exchanged a 'Should we tell him?' glance.

'Physical work makes you feel your oats, in my experience , sir.' said Zoe.

At the camp, they were directed to Pie by a series of youngsters who all gave them surprised looks. For possibly the first time in her life, Kaylee felt embarrassed by the gaze of the camp crew. Their grins were... dirty. And Kaylee did not like the whispers that she almost heard following the mule through the camp.

Neither recognized Pie as the blushing boy they had met so long before, but he obviously knew them. Someone had waved him that they were on their way, and he was waiting with two large young men, plainly meant to be bodyguards. Each carried a pick, the tool of choice for planters, but clean and sharp.

Pie was the Big Man of the camp, apparently.

But he looked nervous as Mal approached, closely followed by Zoe, with Kaylee and Wash trailing behind, stretching from the long ride.

'It warn't no big thing, you know.' the boy said.

Mal stopped. He only knew the boy as a voyeur and was puzzled by his evident worry. But if it worked in his favour.

'I heard about your gossipy ways. Not what I'm here about though. I hear you might be able to help me lay hands on some good timber at a better price than Blue Sun charges. I understand you might owe me and mine a favour or two.'

Zoe already had the minions agitated. Her height, increased by thick 4 cm heels on her kneehigh boots, her steady gaze and her beauty made her Amazonian presence intimidating.

Pie relaxed. 'Ah, business. I like to do business.'

'So you might be able to lay hands on some good product for cashy money?'

'Might do, might do.' he signalled across the clearing to a skinny girl tending a large stove under a marquee. She scuttled over with a tray of tea and biscuits. 'We're pretty rough and ready out here in the camp, but please have a seat and some refreshment.'

Mal was amused by the youngsters style. He grinned back at him and the lad looked a tad disconcerted.

'If I give you the dimensions of our cargo bay, do you think you could fill it?'

"Give me the numbers.'

They quickly decided how much space Serenity's really had available and settled in to setting price.

Kaylee was finding it hard to settle. She tugged on the sleeve of the tea girl and whispered a request for the facilities. The girl led her from the tent and pointed her downhill where several wooden outhouses perched, raised a few steps above the ground on joists that allowed them to be moved easily when the camp did.

Kaylee did not really need the toilets, but she was twitchy waiting for Mal to learn about their seven minutes of fame. And sixteen seconds. The precision was particularly nerve-wracking. It seemed that a lot of attention had been paid to the vid.

Her own memories of the episode were a bit vague, she'd spent a lot of time in bed with the captain since then, even if he had decided to step back to allow her to pursue the schwae young Doctor Tam. She remembered that it was the first time anyone had gone down on her and the first time after several years of sexing the boys back home, that she had ever come. Remembering that, she felt a tingle run through her belly and wondered if she should abandon her quiet pursuit of Simon. But the captain had moved on. His smouldering lust for the beautiful and charming Companion, formerly kept under control by Kaylee's enthusiastic rutting, was burning higher all the time. Inara was pretending, even to herself, that the relationship was business and that his insults did not hurt her.

Kaylee sighed. Love was a difficult thing. Sex was much simpler.

The pit toilets were cleaner and more salubrious than she had because they were moved fairly often. And there was real toilet paper, even a choice of cleaning wipes and a solar heater on the roof heated water in a tank for handwashing.

As she exited the toilet. She could see the planters returning from their shift and the mess tent swinging into action to feed the hungry workers.

The showers were located just uphill from the toilets and most of the crew were heading there before eating. Kaylee noticed that there were separate men's and women's showers and apparently separate bunkies too. She guessed the local culture did not hold with premarital sex.

Which would have made the vid all the more exciting. She wondered if all the youngsters had seen it, or if it was just legendary.

The planter, Patsy was among the returning crew. She spotted Kaylee and loped over to intercept her. "You're the girl in the vid, aincha?'

'Reckon. People keep sayin so anyways. I ain't seen it. An I never gave no permission neither.'

'Well, you two are downright famous. That schwae fella is bigger in person than I thought.'

"The capt'n's tall, I guess.'

'He's not just tall.


End file.
